“And when his work is done—”
“Then he’ll rest, too.”
THE ATHEISTIC TIDE SWEEPING OVER THE CONTINENT.
THE Threatened Destruction of the Simple Faith of the Fathers by the Vain Deceits of Modern Philosophers.—An Attack Christians Must Meet.
[WRITTEN FOR THE CONSTITUTION, 1881.]
New York, January 26.—The dread of the times, as I see it, is the growing skepticism in the leading circles of thought and action throughout the country—a swelling tide of atheism and unbelief that has already swept over the outposts of religion.
I am not alarmed by the fact that Henry Ward Beecher shook hands with Ingersoll on a public stand, and has since swung beyond the limit of orthodoxy, any more than I am reassured by the fact that Stephen H. Tyng has, by indorsing the miracles at Lourdes, swung back into the stronghold of superstition. These are mere personal expressions that may mean much or little. They may be classed with the complaint of Dr. Talmage that he found religion dead in a circuit of 3000 miles of travel last year, which complaint is balanced by the assertion of Dr. Hall that the growth of religious sentiment was never so decisive as at present.